This invention relates to apparatus and method for automatically cleaning devices which are used for filling containers with flowable food materials such as liquid, semi-liquid or pasty products.
Apparatus and processes for automatically filling containers such as cans with both food and non-food products have become very sophisticated. Such apparatus and processes are used to fill containers with liquid, semi-liquid, pasty or solid products including both food products such as liver paste, baby foods, jellys, vegetable oil, mustard, sauces, etc., and non-foods such as mineral oil, wax, paints, etc. It is important, especially when filling containers with food products, that the apparatus used be appropriately cleaned and sanitized. Cleaning and sanitation is typically required after use of the apparatus for some predetermined period of time to can one product, or after completion of canning of one product and before beginning the canning of a different product.
The manner in which flowable material filling devices are cleaned and sanitized would depend in part on the structure of the devices. Such devices may take a variety of forms, one of the most popular of which is the so-called rotary piston filler such as the MR 16, MR 22 and MR 30 units manufactured by Hema International, Inc. of Utah. Rotary fillers typically include a generally cylindrical hopper made, for example, of stainless steel, a number of filling assemblies spaced apart about the exterior of the hopper, and a container or can conveying system for moving cans into position underneath the filling assemblies to receive product. The filling assemblies each typically includes a vertically disposed cylinder, a valve coupling the lower end of the cylinder to the hopper and operable to either allow material to flow from the hopper into the cylinder or to flow from the cylinder into a can positioned below the valve, and a piston movable in the cylinder to force material from the cylinder into the can. Rotary fillers also typically include a piston support structure for causing the pistons to move upwardly in the cylinders when product is flowing from the hopper into the cylinders, and downwardly when product is being forced from the cylinder into cans.
Cleaning of rotary fillers in the past has involved the manual removal of each of the pistons from its respective cylinder so that both the piston and the interior of the cylinder are exposed, spraying the cylinders, pistons, valves and hopper interior with some type of sanitizing liquid, and then manually replacing the pistons in the cylinders. Such cleaning process is both time consuming and inconsistent in that since everything is done manually, attendants must be present to perform the cleaning and the thoroughness of the cleaning may vary from one time to the next.